Saturday, September 30, 2006

Who Cares What The Supreme Court Says?

by tristero

Oh, yes, it's disturbing. But let's not not over-react. In reality, it's just election-season politicking, the torture bill, I'm talking about, the limitations on habeas corpus. They really don't mean it to stick 'cause they know full well it's unconstitutional and the Supreme Court will overrule it. And that will be that.

Supreme Court decisions that are "so clearly at variance with the national will" should be overridden by the other branches of government, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich says.

"What I reject, out of hand, is the idea that by five to four, judges can rewrite the Constitution, but it takes two-thirds of the House, two-thirds of the Senate and three-fourths of the states to equal five judges," Gingrich said during a Georgetown University Law Center conference on the judiciary.

It takes approval by two-thirds of Congress and three-fourths of the 50 states to adopt an amendment to the Constitution, the government's bedrock document.

Gingrich, a Republican who represented a district in Georgia, noted that overwhelming majorities in Congress had reaffirmed the Pledge of Allegiance, and most of the public believes in its right to recite it.

As such, he said, "It would be a violation of the social compact of this country for the Supreme Court to decide otherwise and would lead, I hope, the two other branches to correct the court."

In 2002, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in California ruled that the pledge was unconstitutional when recited in public schools because of the reference to God. The Supreme Court in 2004 reversed that decision on a technicality, but the case has been revived.

Gingrich said "the other two branches have an absolute obligation to render independent judgment" in cases that are "at variance with the national will."

He spoke at Thursday's panel discussion on relations between the executive, judicial and legislative branches of government.

And I can just hear the rationalizations. Look, it's well known Newt isn't in the Bush inner circle, even other Republicans think Newt is crazy.

Keep going...

Besides the country wouldn't stand for it. If George W. Bush chooses to ignore Supreme Court decisions he doesn't like, why, there would be...well, no there wouldn't be riots in the streets, but a lot of very irate people would write letters to the editor!

Riiiiiight.

And don't you just love Daschle's charmingly naive riposte? What if Gore ignored the Supremes? The Republicans wouldn't have liked that one bit! ROTFLMAO!

My dear Daschle, you really don't get it. This isn't a game where the rules are "I play fair so you play fair." This is about the reality of asymmetrical power and that's no game. For a Republican in 2006 to worry that a Democrat would ever be in a position, let alone dare, to override a Supreme Court decision is like worrying that Noam Chomsky might have his own talk show on Fox News.

Now, for those of you clinging on to the delusion that what is happening isn't what actually is happening, let me spell it out. Gingrich is floating out there the very real possibility that Bush will not abide by any Supreme Court judgment he doesn't like. Suddenly the idea that the Supremes aren't the final arbiter on constitutionality is something that "merits discussion" and if you don't think this notion is going to dominate the discourse if the Supremes strike down the torture bill, well, I hate to be so blunt about it, but you are completely, totally wrong.